It is clear to the applicant that high technology is steering people toward solitary forms of entertainment; political discourse has become, in many aspects, predictable and stale; polarization between generational and demographic groups, once a temporary aberration, seems to have become such an immutable part of culture as to make discussion about generational and demographic differences futile. Thus, it is evident that there is a need for a mechanism that will encourage people to entertain in social groups, promote a dialogue about politics and economics, and foster a non confrontational exchange of views about values across generational and demographic groups.
The mechanism that is best suited for this purpose would be card game. A card game is a particularly social form of entertainment. The variation inherent in card games best captures the variation inherent in modern life. The type of card game that would meet the need described would require players to employ many of the skills gained as "players" in modern society in order to compete as players in the game. The choices available in the card game would reflect the various choices available in modern society. The game would sufficiently parody the "rules" of popular culture, economics, and politics such that the participants would have opportunity to learn about the forces and influences that shape modern society. Ideally, the card game would provide entertainment value while at the same time serving as a vehicle for social criticism and commentary. Card games are particularly well suited to fill this need since a card game relies less on chance (there being no dice to roll nor wheels to spin) and card games generally require more demanding strategies than other types of games.
Card Games in a Historic Context, Card games have long been a source of entertainment and a tool for education. Card games reportedly date as far back as the 9th Century when the Chinese Emperor Mu-tsung played a version of domino cards. It is thought that playing cards were introduced into Europe from Egypt. A card game from the region of Mameluks in Egypt, a playing card deck of 52 cards with suits of swords, polo-sticks, cups, and coins, dates to the 14th Century. Card games have not always been well-received. Town ordinances of Paris (1377) and St. Gallen (1379) reportedly prohibited card-play by members of the working class. Religious leaders of Bologna condemned card playing and, in 1423, thousands of cards were burned. This spectacle was repeated in 1452. The earliest known English card games date around 1520, and the earliest surviving English deck (French suited) dates around 1590.
A Description of the Prior Art.
Many different card games present challenges to skill and strategic thinking. Many card games have been proposed that are designed to aid the education process. Card games have been developed to provide an entertaining method for players to understand unwritten rules that govern transactions and commerce. Other card games are designed to encourage discussion of seldom discussed topics. Still other games have been proposed for the improvement of the one-card, one-value style of the standard playing card deck. Other games employ playing cards for fantasy role-playing purposes. The present invention, however, is designed to fill a need that no card game has been developed to address. Specifically, this card game has been invented to provide a means for people of different generations and demographic groups to come together to play a game that entertains; requires skillful value-based strategy decisions; educates players about the unwritten rules that govern our political, economic and political culture; encourages a discussion of issues seldom discussed across generations; and uses an innovative three-value system of cards that reflect different role-playing assignments among the players.
Games associated with the 52-card standard playing cards are those that come most readily to mind when associating card games with skill and strategic thinking. Poker, Bridge, and even such games as "Go Fish" and "Crazy Eights," long in the public domain, challenge players to plan several steps ahead of a current turn in order to succeed. Parker Brothers has marketed a French card game Mille Borne in the United States--a game that requires players to skillfully overcome "Hazard" cards in order to collect exactly 1000 points in "mileage" cards. Another card game, "UNO," requires strategic thinking by players in order to successfully match colors, numbers or words. A more recent game, U.S. Pat. No. 5,092,596, (Bucaria) challenges players to make strategic decisions as relating to owning and running a professional baseball team. Standard playing card games, and games such as UNO, however, fail to hold the public's attention because the strategies employed are designed for the accumulation of card points--points that do not correspond to appetites and wants outside the card game, i.e. the needs and wants that are a part of our everyday life. Strategy games such as that described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,092,596 are deficient because they do not reflect real-life strategies that we all employ as part of surviving in the modern world.
Many other types of card games have been proposed that are designed to aid the education process. Aside from trivia-type games that pose questions and reveal answers, many games have been developed to familiarize players with political issues. For example, United States Patent U.S. Pat. No. 816,119 (Noonan) was designed in part to educate players with about the Electoral College and the political calculus that went into electing a person as President of the United States. U.S. Pat. No. 1,357,166 (Harted) was designed to familiarize players with leaders of World War I. The limitations upon these games are that they are designed primarily to familiarize players with objective names and institutions. These games are not designed to educate players as to how these names and institutions are subjectively perceived by different generational and demographic groups.
Card games have been developed to provide an entertaining method for players to understand unwritten rules that govern various segments of our society. U.S. Pat. No. 1,146,798, (James) was designed, in part, to help educate players to the unwritten rules and procedures that govern the purchase of real estate. U.S. Pat. No. 1,553,736 (Wyle) was created to help educate players about the unwritten rules that govern the trading of stocks and bonds. U.S. Pat. No. 1,855,543 (Dalton) helps to educate players as to the unwritten rules that govern political party conventions. A recently patented game, U.S. Pat. No. 5,632,488 (Strum) is designed to familiarize players with the unwritten rules that go into creating political consensus. The short coming of these games is that they are limited to relatively narrow and specialized segments of our society. They ignore the fact that modern society itself operates by certain unwritten rules that can by captured by the dynamics of a card game.
Card games are powerful tools for communication. They are capable of serving as a mechanism for the discussion of topics that might not be raised among friends, family or strangers. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 1,314,522 (Knoos) was designed to encourage discussion between males and females at social gatherings. U.S. Pat. No. 4,635,939 (Makow), is a game that is designed to encourage the discussion of ethics as applied to various real-world scenarios. U.S. Pat. No. 5,375,846 (Smith) is a game that is designed to encourage a discussion of sexual etiquette and ethics. However, none of these games and no game known to the inventor is designed specifically to encourage members of different generational croups to discuss politics, ethics, values, economics and consumer culture.
As for the mechanics of playing card games, there have been attempts to improve the "one-card, one-value" system as typified in the standard card deck. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,588,193 (Winston) describes an alternative deck of cards that consists of three different suits with four different number values per suit such that every number value of a given suit is paired once with every number value of the other suits. This alternative to the standard card deck proved to be difficult to perfect because it was necessary to maintain a precise mathematic balance among each and every value in order to ensure that the card deck is a "fair" one. This innovation is extremely limited because in the name of preserving "fairness," U.S. Pat. No. 4,588,193 sacrifices expression and flexibility. Specifically, such a card game, determined to preserve the mathematical fairness of the card distribution, cannot reflect the fundamental unfairness, i.e. disparities that exist in our popular culture. Moreover, the system of valuation described by No. 4,588,193 cannot serve an editorial function by applying different values to an object that is featured in the center of the playing card.
Other card games employ playing cards for fantasy role-playing purposes. U.S. Pat. No. 5,092,596 (Bucaria) is a game the allows players to play the role of a major league baseball owner so as to familiarize players about the business aspects of owning and running a major league baseball team. A popular card game called "Magic," produced by Wizards of the Coast, allows players to adopt fictitious roles for battle and treasure-finding purposes. The shortcoming of these games is that the roles that are played out are so removed from the actual experience of the players that the value of these games as tools for education and understanding is speculative. U.S. Pat. No. 5,375,846 (Smith) employs role-playing by players that correspond more directly with experiences in the real world. However, this prior art utilizes real-world role-playing for the important, yet narrowly-defined, purpose of soliciting viewpoints on sexually-related issues such as sexually-related social dilemmas, sexual etiquette, and sensitivity.
Thus, a survey of the prior art reveals that no card game is adequately suited to fill the entertainment, communication, and education purposes envisioned. Thus, it would be necessary to conceive of and create a new, useful, and non-obvious card game that fills the need identified by the applicant.